How to Delete Duplicate Photos on Mac

Exact duplicates vs similar shots

An exact duplicate is the same photo stored more than once. Typical paths are an AirDrop on top of an import, a camera card brought in twice, an export saved back into Photos, or a HEIC original sitting beside a JPEG export of the same frame. Those are the copies it is reasonable to collapse in bulk, and only after you look at the row Photos is offering you.

A near duplicate is a different frame. Bursts, a second tap of the shutter, a crop, or two photos of the same scene a second apart can look identical in a grid and still be two pictures you meant to keep. Apps that advertise a similar-photo cleaner are often deleting memories, not freeing a meaningful amount of storage. Exact duplicates are the storage task. Similar shots are an editing task you should do on purpose.

Repeated videos are a third pile, and they are not this page’s job to remove. A repeated screen recording can be several gigabytes. A repeated still is often a few megabytes. Clean the stills with Photos, then decide about videos with a tool that actually sees byte size. Mixing the two behind one button is how the wrong file disappears.

Method 1 — Photos built-in Duplicates

On macOS Ventura and later, open Photos, show Utilities in the sidebar, and select Duplicates. Apple’s steps are in Remove duplicate photos and videos on Mac. Depending on the size of the library, Photos needs time to analyze before rows appear. An empty album in the first minute is a reason to wait, not a reason to install something that promises to scan faster.

Select the row, or several rows, and click Merge. Confirm the merge. Photos leaves one item where those duplicates were and moves the other copies to Recently Deleted, where you can recover them for about 30 days. Prefer Merge over deleting one thumbnail by hand: you stay inside the group Photos already made, and the recovery window still exists. Look at the row first. Favorites and captions should be obvious before you confirm, and a burst that only looks alike should not be merged just because the frames are neighbors.

Space comes back when Recently Deleted is emptied, or when the 30 days run out, not at the moment you click Merge. If you use an iCloud Shared Photo Library, open the Library menu in the toolbar and choose Both Libraries so you are not merging only one side of the share. Then empty Recently Deleted on purpose, after a last look through what landed there.

Method 2 — Manual review when Duplicates is empty or slow

Duplicates can be missing from that album because analysis has not finished, because the shots are only similar, or because the copies live in a different library than the one you opened. When you know the event, review that day or that import by eye: a card imported twice, an AirDrop from the same phone, a folder dropped into Photos on two afternoons. Search by date rather than by a promise that every repeat has already been detected.

Still do not delete files inside the Photos Library package. Finder does not send those files to Recently Deleted, and it can damage the library. If two stills are clearly the same image and Duplicates has not paired them, delete one in Photos itself so the recovery album exists. If they are almost the same, keep both or pick by hand. There is no honest bulk button for close enough.

While you are in that review, do not expect a video manager to finish the stills. albumlean does not delete duplicate still photos. The Mac app reads videos in the Photos library you authorize. Stills stay in Photos’ own Duplicates album and in whatever manual pass you just did. Installing a second scanner will not change that boundary.

iCloud Photos caveats

With iCloud Photos on, merge on one Mac. The deletion can sync to the iPhone and iPad signed in with the same Apple Account. Those devices also keep Recently Deleted, and the restore window is the same idea: about 30 days, unless you empty the album sooner. Cleaning every device by hand is unnecessary, and it is easy to restore on one screen what you just removed on another.

A full iCloud plan is related, and it is usually not caused by a handful of duplicate stills. If new photos have stopped uploading, the heavier reason is often video. Keep that as a separate job. iCloud full of videos is the page for that shortage. Merge here, on the Mac, and let Photos sync. This page does not walk through the iCloud website, because file size is not something you should guess from a thumbnail in a browser.

After photo dupes, videos often waste more

When the exact stills are merged, look at video before you call the library clean. albumlean does not delete duplicate still photos. It groups videos that have exactly the same byte size, shows how much the extra copies occupy, and can select the extra copies: the favorite in each group, or the oldest if none is a favorite. You preview, then Photos moves the selection to Recently Deleted. Equal size is a strong clue. It is not a proof you should skip the preview, especially with screen recordings that share a default name.

The same app sorts every video by real file size, so a 20 GB recording that was never duplicated is still visible. That is the rest of the storage win, and for many libraries it is the larger one. Walk through it on deleting duplicate videos on Mac and finding large videos in Photos. If the package is large for several reasons at once, the wider diagnosis is reducing Photos library size on Mac.

Nothing in that video pass uploads the library or creates an albumlean account. The current download does not charge. Pricing is only the planned paid release. If the internal disk is still too small after both the still pass and the video pass, moving the library to an external drive is the following decision. It is not a substitute for the merge you just did, and it should not happen before you have dropped the clips you already know are waste.

FAQ

Should I Merge or Delete?

Merge when Photos has put exact copies on one row. Photos keeps one item in the library and sends the others to Recently Deleted. Delete a single still yourself when you already know which copy is the extra and Duplicates has not listed it. Either way, empty Recently Deleted to reclaim the space, and do not delete the file in Finder. Merge is the safer default because you are confirming a group instead of guessing which thumbnail is the spare.

Why is the Duplicates album empty?

Analysis may still be running on a large library. The album also stays empty when the shots are bursts or near matches rather than exact copies, and when you are looking at a library other than the one that holds the copies. Wait, confirm which library is open, and only then treat an empty album as a real lack of exact duplicates. A slow album is not a broken album.

Why is the space not freed?

Merged and deleted items sit in Recently Deleted and still count toward the library. Empty that album, or wait out the retention window of about 30 days. If iCloud Photos is on, the plan updates after sync, which can take longer than the click. Duplicate stills are often a small number next to one duplicated screen recording. Check videos before you assume the merge failed.

Will some other cleaner do the stills faster?

Faster is not the same as safer. Photos already groups exact duplicates and gives you Recently Deleted. A still cleaner that uploads the library, or that deletes similar frames in bulk, is a different product with a different risk. albumlean does not delete duplicate still photos. Do not install it expecting a still-photo merge. Install it when the next job is duplicate video or a real-size sort.